12 Things You Need To Know Today (September 24)

It helped one Massachusetts teen get to the hospital after he realized his heart rate was still abnormally high two hours after a football practice. He was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, which can lead to kidney failure and even death. (CBS News)

2. Obesity rates continue to plague the country.

The CDC released a state-by-state analysis of adult obesity rates. Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi had the highest rates, while Hawaii and Colorado were among the states with the lowest rates. (CNN)

3. New York City now has 1,000 miles of bike lanes.

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The city reached the big milestone this week and plans to add at least 12 more miles of protected paths by the end of the year. (Daily News)

The Girls star and her musician boyfriend teamed up with Planned Parenthood to create "Men’s Health," a short comical video about how the organization helps men, too. (Refinery29)

5. New York City's Styrofoam ban is now kaput.

Good news for food trucks; bad news for the environment. After Mayor de Blasio banned plastic foam containers in the city because foam lobbyists failed to prove that their products were recyclable, State Supreme Court Justice Margaret Chan has now overturned the measure, citing evidence that the material is, in fact, recyclable, and could save the city at least $400,000 annually. (NY Post)

6. Cyberbullying is a huge issue — but parents don't understand it.

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, part of the University of Michigan hospital system, polled a nationally representative sample of 611 parents, asking them if they thought certain instances of cruel online behavior were cyberbullying and found that parents don't agree on what constitutes cyberbullying. For example, only 45 percent of parents considered "Sharing a photo altered to make a classmate appear fatter" cyberbullying. (NY Mag)

7. There are health benefits to fidgeting?!

Good news for those of us with office jobs! New research shows that small movements like fidgeting can lessen the toll that hours of sitting takes on our health. (ScienceDaily)

8. The pope calls for urgent action on climate change.

In a welcoming ceremony at the White House, Pope Francis delivered a speech that emphasized the need to care for “our common home." To apply further moral pressure, he said, "It seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation ... To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.” Amen. (The Guardian)

9. Men's salaries haven't changed much in the last 40 years.

The latest census data shows that the average male salary in the U.S. has actually decreased slightly since 1973, after inflation is accounted for. The reason? Growing income gaps between the upper and middle classes. (Washington Post)

10. Volkswagen admits 11 million of its cars were made to cheat emissions standards.

Last week, Volkswagen was accused of retrofitting its vehicles to pass EPA emissions tests. At first, Volkswagen said 500,000 of its cars had the illegal technology; today it changed the number to 11 million. (NYT)

11. At-home STD tests are now a thing.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are creating an at-home device that tests users for an STD and sends the results to their phone within 30 minutes. The device, called mobiLab, will first offer a chlamydia test but will later include HIV and gonorrhea tests as well. (Baltimore Sun)

12. At 16, Niamh McKevitt is the only girl in England playing football in the boys’ leagues and she's sharing her story in a new book.

“What happens is, if a boy in my team was playing badly, he was playing badly because he was having a bad game. If a boy got kicked in the face and cried, it was because he got kicked in the face and it hurt. If I was playing badly, I was playing badly because girls can't play football. If I got kicked in the face and cried, it was because girls can't play football.” —Niamh McKevitt (New Statesman)

Jason is the founder and CEO of mindbodygreen and the author of Wellth. He has been featured in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Vogue, and has a B.A. in history from Columbia University, where he played varsity basketball for four years.

Jason is the founder and CEO of mindbodygreen and the author of Wellth. He has been featured in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Vogue, and has a B.A. in history from Columbia University, where he played varsity basketball for four years.